Obama Blames Bad Campaign Strategy For Clinton Loss

President Barack Obama has suggested that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost the election because she failed to address the concerns of voters living in rural areas of the country.

In an interview with NPR, Obama explained that it isn’t enough for Democrats to consolidate their support in traditionally blue areas like major cities and the coasts.

"Democratic voters are clustered in urban areas … and on the coasts, and so as a consequence you've got a situation where there are not only entire states but also big chunks of states where, if we're not showing up, if we're not in there making an argument, then we're going to lose," he said, according to the Daily Mail. "And we can lose badly, and that's what happened in this election."

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Obama believes that unless the Democrats change their approach and reach out to voters in states like Wisconsin and Iowa, they're liable to suffer more defeats like the one they suffered in November.

"There are clearly failures on our part to give people in rural areas or in exurban areas a sense day-to-day that we're fighting for them or connected to them," he said. "Part of the reason it's important to show up … is because it then builds trust and it gives you a better sense of how should you talk about issues in a way that feel salient and feel meaningful to people."

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But the president was also careful to draw attention to the fact that, according to the CIA, Russia interfered in the U.S. election to assist President-elect Donald Trump.

"That the CIA is now assessing, [but it is believed that] it was done purposefully to tilt the election in the direction of a particular candidate, [and this] shouldn't be a surprise to anybody," Obama said, according to CNN. "And in fact isn't a surprise to anybody."

Obama also believes Trump was able to use his showmanship and media savvy to convince voters that he was the answer to their problems.

"If we don't, you know, do some hard reflection -- all of us -- on how that happens, then we're like a body that is already weakened and then becomes more vulnerable to foreign viruses, becomes more vulnerable to manipulation and demagoguery and that's something that I'm also going to be thinking a lot about in my afterlife, my post-presidency," he said.